Well, spring reluctantly arrived on the farm in early April, after what seemed like a year of cold and wet weather.
This allowed us to start with the job of drilling our spring crops. All of the sugar beet went into ideal conditions and now, with modern drills and cultivators, the operation only takes us a week to drill our acreage. The crop is now growing away well and we are pushing on with keeping the weeds at bay.
It’s also allowed us to get the potato crop planted without any weather delays and we managed to get finished in good time. It’s a total opposite to last year when we had a six-week delay due to the rain. Last April we recorded 153mm on the farm, compared to just 20mm this year.
We are also just about finished with the vining pea drilling. We are programmed to drill the crop with the other growers throughout the season to ensure the continuity of crop at harvest to keep the factory full with fresh peas.
During drilling we found one of our returning field guests nesting in the field. The oyster catchers seem to be returning year after year and nesting in the fields around the farm. We are carrying out a number of bird surveys to hopefully see the numbers of all different species increasing around the farm. It’s clear that large scale arable farming and wildlife can mix well together.
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